


Renegades of the War

by RedMenaceH



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Cameos, Time War (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23723278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMenaceH/pseuds/RedMenaceH
Summary: Worlds are burning. Stars are dying. Time is changing. There's a war none of them want to fight.They're Renegades. They run. That’s what they do.
Kudos: 1





	Renegades of the War

To own a Tardis was to become part of the ever shrinking privilege granted to even the most esteemed of Gallifreyans who achieved the title of Time Lord in the nightmare times of The War. But that didn’t stop her, for all intents and purposes, she was a tactician of decent repute. Capable of drawing up new strategies on the fly, offering suggestions when needed and holding her tongue when commanders confronted failure of their own making.  _ What can a little old academic like me do, I’m not a soldier, isn’t that right Commander Davicron?  _ She thought bemused as they watched them become irate, knowing their fate had been sealed when the War Council would summon them to the Core Zone of Time. 

But a Tardis.

They were rare as they came unless you knew where to look. She knew where to look. Had spent four hundred and sixty Tardis cycles for her chance, transferred and transferred irregularly enough to go unnoticed and, with one final sigh, reached her intended destination. Legendary for what blossomed from its mangled vines of the workshop. Tardises. Pristine and new and destined to the very select few considered worthy and loyal to the cause of The War.

She was not worthy in the slightest. She was disloyal to the extreme.  _ I’m not a soldier. I’m a coward,  _ she thought, navigating in the shadows of time, sneaking between the folds of space, delving into the undergrowth of dimensions, picking her way past suspicion until she broke through into the Prepping Station where newly forged Tardises were held.

Her footsteps whispered, her breath broke the tension, her brow glistened, her thoughts buzzed and hearts close to an attack. After so long. After so many near misses. It was finally happening. The first step.

_ “You’re drawn to them. That’s when you know you’ve found the one for you.”  _ She remembered those words. Had managed to strike up a chat with Sculptor who spoke of the craft as one would describe it as an artistic process. Finding the lines. Giving abstract thought concrete form. Bring forth what lurked beneath.

_ Focus. Let it draw you in,  _ she thought and began the slow process of capturing it. The feeling.

A billion strong army lurked at the back of her mind, ten thousand were close by, one errant step could bring this crashing down on her without time to think. Speed. Many would call for speed. Not her, speed was not the answer here, time, care and attentiveness were all she needed for this.  _ Let the threads be what bind us,  _ she thought,  _ let the threads be what give us clarity. Let the thread be what we weave a new future for all to share in.  _

The flicker of a murmur. Was that it? Yes. It had to be. 

She concentrated and turned ninety degrees to her right.  _ “Go with sensation.”  _ The sensation of being drawn to the heart of a star.  _ Come on. Come on. Be the one,  _ she thought and stepped towards her future.

A Tardis default state, once brought to fruition, was as someone would and wouldn’t expect. Rectangular in shape. White as light hurled back through a prism. Plain in detail. Only a doorway with its line cut into it. No handle. There was never a handle until the process of Pilot and Tardis had formed a union.

“Hello,” she whispered, pressing her hand against the pearl white surface of a box standing over her, taking in the texture.  _ “Gallifreyans make the mistake of seeing a Tardis as a machine. Something built. Repaired. Disposed. Not true. When you touch a Tardis you understand it’s far more than a machine.”  _ She had to agree, touching it, feeling the roughness of its surface, like the bark of a tree even though it appeared perfectly smooth. “I’m….I’m going to be your partner. I do hope you don’t mind.”

It made no reply. 

“Let’s get to work. I’ll try to be careful. Okay?”

It made no reply.

She knelt on one knee, withdrew a small device from her pocket and began to carve out an opening with a delicate pace. Projecting threads of her thoughts to the inert creature.  _ You’ll like me, aren’t you? You don’t want to fight in this war? You want to exist in a state of harmony, lost at sea in the depths of time. I’m like that as well. I’m not for war. Can’t stand the thought of it. Hated every second of it.  _ The outer layer of the spot she had chosen to focus on came away, with an oozing of pulp and flesh, soft and lively.  _ You’re awake. I can tell. I can….feel you….I can feel you. _

It made no reply.

The process to unlock it began with deft fingers and tools delving into the crevice of not quite a wound.

_ I can feel you and you’re not turning me away. I know what a Tardis does when it wants to be left well alone and you’re not…..but then…..am I wrong for doing this? Are you okay with this? No answer isn’t an answer. _

It made no reply, but a single set of footsteps lost in the racket of her thoughts drew near, singing out warnings of don’t come here, did. They came to a regimented stop right behind her and a device clicked in her direction.

“Under directive of Gallifrey’s War Council anyone caught attempting to-”

“They’ll find out,” she interrupted swiftly, hands still working on the panelling, feeling her away through the cobweb circuitry beginning to stir from its eternal slumber, not in the slightest deterred by the Demat Rifle aimed at her head. A small device capable of destabilising the atomic structure of its target, inducing a slow death cycle of falling apart at the literal seams of their existence.

“What?”

“You know, our communications, if they catch me, they’ll find out you helped me break in and even if you turn on me, as you are right now, they’ll treat you with the same kindness as me. Execution by Burnout.”

Curiosity and doubt. She felt it like a twin heartbeat beneath her hand. “I don’t know you. I’ve never met you.”

“Don’t have to. You’re my insurance. Forged a lifetime of communications between us. All planning this escape for millennia. What happened?” she asked as though they were really part of their plan, all the while her hands worked diligently, cutting roots, forging new connections, finding the heartbeat of its core. “Why did you turn on me? Don’t you want to be free?”

A small flustering of unsure footsteps caught her ear before finding themselves.  _ Come on. Don’t fail me now.  _

“Put your hands where I can see them. I will not ask again.”

“Shan’t.”

Click.  _ Yes! _

The door of the Tardis drifted open with a slowness.

“What have you done?” Their voice is more unsure, as though bearing witness to an holy ritual meant for the select few and them wholly unworthy.

“Freedom. You’re welcome to join-”

“SEAL OFF THE AREA!” The voice boomed, carrying within the seeds of absolute loyalty to the cause. “By proclamation of the War Council, any and all attempts to access a Tardis will be considered traitors to the cause of The War.”

They were a walking corpse. She knew it. They knew it. Everyone who didn’t know it knew it.

“Standing around. Not a great look. Either you let me go and end up worse than dead, or run, take a chance on me, be the first in line. What do you say?”

“I can’t.”

“But you will. I’ve condemned you to death. Why did you-”

“I’m coming,” it was quick and sharp and barrelling into the console room, default, white, roundels and the console, stood right in the middle of it all. The door slammed shut to its own accord. 

She looked up, took a breath, closed her eyes and flexed her fingers. “Welcome to the first day of your new life as a renegade,” she sang, rushing for the console and dancing about the controls, dials and knick-knack detail on display. “Oh, you’re fresh as they come, aren’t you?”

The soldier looked about, ears trained on the eruption of strikes against the door. “Get it going!”

“As much as they try to drill it in,” she began, fingers finding the controls and almost, almost, feeling as though she had always known how to use them, “a lot of us don’t want this. You’re a coward. I’m a coward. It’s wonderful to admit that.”

An oscillation of time rose in pitch, the soft purring of its engineers came to life, the demands for capitulation grew louder from beyond the door and the Soldier felt a twisting of a feeling they’d never known. “I’m not a coward.”

“Oh, but you are and that’s good,” she proclaimed and pulled a level.

Then they were gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> The whole thing was born out of a single musical cue buried in the middle of the French theme used for Transformers (G1) animated series and the sapphire shade of blue. Amazing what can be used for inspiration.


End file.
